GREENVILLE – Five days out from lift off – aka the Great American Solar Eclipse – the National Weather Service is trying to nail down a more concrete forecast for Aug. 21.

It’s still hard to say for certain, said Lauren Carroll, meteorologist with the Weather Service at the Greenville-Spartanburg Regional Airport, since weather patterns can change quickly in the mountains.

“I’m a little more confident that there could be more cloud cover. There will be a cold front, providing a focus for showers and thunderstorms, coming through on Sunday. If it gets stuck in South Carolina near Columbia, there will be less cloud cover in WNC.

“We know it’s going to get stalled somewhere, we’re just not sure where,” she said.

The forecast now is about a 50 percent chance of clouds and a 20-30 percent chance of rain, which Carroll said is slightly down from previous forecast.

She said she has confidence that we can expect showers and thunderstorms Saturday.

“If this trend continues for the next couple of days, we’ll have better confidence on Friday and Saturday what the weather will be on Monday.”